Long-Range Night Vision
The world’s first ultra-high-sensitivity interchangeable lens camera equipped with a SPAD sensor, supporting precise monitoring through clear colour image capture of subjects several kilometres away, even in darkness.
Measuring the Value of Light – Not the Amount
SPAD (single photon avalanche diode) sensors are a type of image sensor. The term “image sensor” probably brings to mind the CMOS sensors found in digital cameras, but SPAD sensors operate on different principles.
Both SPAD and CMOS sensors make use of the fact that light is made up of particles. However, with CMOS sensors, each pixel measures the amount of light that reaches the pixel within a given time, whereas SPAD sensors measure each individual light particle (i.e., photon) that reaches the pixel. Each photon that enters the pixel immediately gets converted into an electric charge, and the electrons that result are eventually multiplied like an avalanche until they form a large signal charge that can be extracted.
CMOS sensors read light as electric signals by measuring the volume of light that accumulates in a pixel within a certain time frame. This makes it possible for noise to enter the pixel along with the light particles (photons), thus contaminating the information received. Meanwhile, SPAD sensors digitally count individual photon particles, making it hard for electronic noise to enter. This makes it possible to obtain a clear image.
Low-Light Environments Can Be Viewed as if They Were Recorded in Bright Areas
The SPAD sensor newly developed by Canon employs a proprietary pixel architecture that reflects photons inside the pixel to detect photons across the entire range of effective pixels. Under equivalent light, this SPAD sensor can capture the same images as a conventional CMOS sensor while requiring only 1/10 of the imaging area. This makes possible an ultra-compact design that can be installed even in small devices and greatly increases sensitivity. By equipping cameras designed for low-light and monitoring applications with this new SPAD sensor, even video footage of poorly lit environments can be viewed as if it was recorded in bright areas, enabling identification of subject movement as though viewing with the naked eye in well-lit environments.
Achieving High Pixel and High Sensitivity
In conventional backlit SPAD sensors, only photons within the space covered by an electrical field (sensitivity field) can be detected, requiring pixel size to be shrunk and, as a result, sensitivity to be lowered. With the proprietary voltage accumulation architecture of this new SPAD sensor, the space within the sensitivity field covers the entire pixel area, increasing the amount number of photons that reach the light-receiving pixels. This makes possible a photon-use efficiency of 100 percent, including within the near-infrared range, with a pixel pitch of 6.39 μm, realizing both miniaturization and high sensitivity.
As a result, clear images with the world’s highest resolution of 3.2 megapixels can be captured under environments equivalent to starless night skies.
Use case: Nighttime seaport monitoring
Right: Telephoto mode
World’s First Ultra-High Sensitivity ILC Camera
The MS-500 is an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) that employs the bayonet lens mount (based on BTA S-1005B standards) which is widely used in the broadcast lens industry. This enables the camera to be used with Canon’s extensive range of broadcast lenses, which feature superb optical performance. As a result, the camera will be able to recognize and capture subjects that are several miles away.
Unprecedented High-Speed and High-Precision Distance Measurements
The SPAD sensor that Canon developed has a time resolution as precise as 100 picoseconds, which enables extremely fast information processing. This makes it possible to capture the movement of objects that move extremely quickly, such as light particles.
Enables capture of slow-motion images of high-speed phenomena that occur nearly instantaneously
Source：École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Canon Inc.
In addition to high resolution and high sensitivity, it is also capable of capturing light trails moving at a speed of approximately 300,000 kilometres per second (7.5 times the Earth’s circumference). Taking advantage of its high-speed response, this new SPAD sensor is expected to be used for driverless vehicles, medical diagnostic imaging equipment, scientific measurement equipment, to name just a few possibilities.
For example, thanks to its temporal resolution and high sensitivity, there are expectations that this technology may be used in the process of obtaining high-speed, high-precision 3D special information for such applications as distance measurement for automated vehicles, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). What’s more, in the field of medicine, this sensor holds the potential for use in camera components of medical diagnostic imaging devices, microscopes, and other equipment. Such devices may be used to determine the behaviour and position of fluorescent substances in patient bodies that emit faint light in extremely brief time spans. This capability could potentially help identify early-stage cancer cells or other illnesses, or localized afflictions in their initial stages.
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